


in the origami garden

by KatRoma



Series: of pinwheels and paper daffodils [9]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Dysfunctional Family, Female Uchiha Sasuke, Gen, In a Non-Blood Related Context Of Course, Mother-Daughter Relationship, POV Konan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-18 10:36:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3566579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatRoma/pseuds/KatRoma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Konan takes on a motherly figure during the three years Sasuke spends with the Akatsuki, balancing an awkward line between "dysfunctional family" and "international criminal organization."</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the origami garden

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I promise the next thing I come out with will be "trapped in the amber of this moment"! I literally wrote this in a night because I couldn't sleep, and it was better than an essay. Then I'll work on the two requests I have.

Little Sasuke isn’t so little anymore when she comes tumbling back into Konan’s life, bleeding and limping and dripping with melting ice caught in her hair and clothes.

As expected for the public face of the village head, it’s not difficult for Konan to call on a medical-nin at short notice. Sasuke’s shirt sticks stubbornly to her body from blood and water, and Akemi cuts it off with a pair of scissors before beginning the healing process. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” she says with a short smile to Sasuke. “Did someone start to heal it and stop before they were done? Because the internal damage is gone.”

“Something like that,” she says, hand twitching from the prodding fingers. “The hospital was a mess.”

Akemi raises her eyebrow in disapproval before channelling chakra into her hand. Kisame informed them Sasuke was injured after he returned from the Fire Country a month earlier; it’s surprising she’s in this good condition after being stabbed by kunai. After all, those triangular blades were made to be fatal.

When Sasuke catches Konan’s eye, looking anywhere but the medical-nin’s hand, she smiles the same sweet smile she had at seven and ten and the years in between. “Sorry for this,” she says. “I wanted to hear everything.”

“Neither of us are going anywhere,” Konan says. “Catching up can wait.”

Catching up requires more than her side of the story. Sasuke smiles again, smaller this time, and turns her gaze to the ceiling. They’re quiet as Akemi works, allowing her to concentrate, and Konan looks over the girl nearly grown. Though only two and a half years passed since the day Itachi spirited his little sister back to her home village, it seems much longer at a glance. Not long before she left, puberty came to her early, and she’s taller with a body more formed than most girls her age. Any softness she had faded, and her hair’s longer, heavier, its old messy appearance gone. The most striking difference, though, are her eyes, because the darkness Itachi always carried with him is now trapped with her, too.

She always did look an awful lot like her brother. Now it’s just more blatant.

After Akemi finishes with the wound to the abdomen, she begins on Sasuke’s feet, damaged from the long walk. Akemi was right when she said it wasn’t terrible, because it healed cleanly, leaving no mark to show Sasuke was injured at all. Though Konan can’t say the others agree, she understands why Itachi sent Sasuke away. This lifestyle never suited him, regardless of what he pretended. It suited Sasuke since she was seven. There’s nothing kind in what the Akatsuki does, and he always was overprotective almost to fault.

The events of the past week or so affect her soon enough, and she falls asleep right there on the table. “She’s all fixed, Konan-sama,” Akemi says when she’s done. “She just needs some dry clothes and rest. Keep an eye on this, too,” she adds, indicating the mark on Sasuke’s shoulder Orochimaru gave her. It’s confined now, and odd that no one in Konoha did away with it permanently. “There’s a block on her chakra originating from here that makes her hard to heal. If the original wound was as deep as she said it was, it’s impressive the medic was even able to heal it this much.”

“I’ll speak to her about it in the morning,” Konan says. “Thank you for your help, Akemi-san.”

Though Akemi insists she can do so alone, Konan assists in gathering her supplies. It’s very late, and telling Nagato that Sasuke’s come home can wait until morning, too. Until then, Konoha will wake the girl briefly enough to give her a spare change of clothes, and find a bed. In the morning, they’ll discuss the past two years, and in the morning, they can figure out where to go from here.

 

 

Sasuke sleeps the rest of the night, and half the following day. When she finally comes to Konan at noon, her hair’s wet from a shower, the shirt she must’ve found in Kisame’s drawer sliding off, and Itachi’s eyes are still clouded with exhaustion. “I just talked to Pein,” she says, settling into a chair across the desk with a mug of coffee in her hands and her legs crossed at the knees. “He was closer to the kitchen. I never realized his hair was that red before—or that your eyes are grey. Places were always so easy. People weren’t.”

When Konan was caring for Sasuke the first time, she never imagined the girl would be able to see her properly. Konan missed Sasuke regaining her sight, and transition from a child into a young lady. As an orphan herself, Konan never had a mother to tell her how rapidly children grow.

“I remember you saying everything was bright,” she says, putting the village paperwork aside. Sometimes it’s confusing, balancing the Akatsuki’s illegal acts with all the legal actions of assisting the village head. “This isn’t dull?”

Shaking her head, Sasuke says, “It’s less...busy. I didn’t like it right away, but once sunlight stopped hurting, it grew on me. So where is everyone? It’s never this empty.” Her words come out quicker than they used to it, with the accents positioned on different letters, and a harder emphasis on her consonants. As young as she is, likely it won’t be long before Amegakure sneaks back into her voice.

“Two major villages are handling a change in leadership,” Konan answers. Sasuke sips her coffee, and looks towards the window, towards the rain, blinking Itachi’s eyes. “Then there’s Orochimaru, who nearly started a war, so that’s a situation that needs looking into. It’s been about a month since they were all sent to gather information, so it shouldn’t be long until they’re back.”

“But it’s been two months since Suna figured out the Kazekage was dead,” Sasuke says, scrunching her forehead in confusion. “Konoha elected, found, and returned the Godaime in two and a half weeks. What’s taking them so long? Oh, and the coffee’s great. Way better than Konoha’s.”

Despite the change in looks, it seems so far as though her personality’s relatively unchanged. This is good, because Konan’s aware of Konoha’s self-important view of itself, and Sasuke doesn’t need to be affected by that. “It’s imported from the Hot Water Country,” Konan says. “The Fire Country tries to grow its own. You didn’t hear about the Kazekage debate in Konoha?”

Again, Sasuke shakes her head. Drops of water drip from her hair like drizzling rain, dampening her shirt. “I was hospitalized for a while,” she says, “and my sensei was working on solo missions to replace all the jounin Konoha lost, which was a good fourth. A third of chuunin died, or were too severely injured to heal right enough for them to go back into service. One of the gennin competing with me had his whole body crushed by the Suna Jinchuruki’s sand. He can barely walk. It’s kind of a mess there right now.”

Konan knew Konoha was weak from the attack, but she wasn’t expecting severity like this. Though the village itself isn’t Nagato’s target, the Jinchuruki there is. If it comes to a fight because they’re defensive of him, Sasuke could be a better source of information than anything Kisame finds. “The Jinchuruki is actually what’s making the election of the Kazekage complicated,” Konan says. “Gaara, isn’t it? He’s one of the possible choices.”

“ _What?_ ” Sasuke uncrosses her legs, leaning forward. The shirt slips off her shoulders. “Two months ago, everyone hated him. And I mean _everyone_. His own siblings were afraid of him. I almost killed him, and a few people from his village applauded. Like, he was screaming and everything, and no one cared.”

The wind picks up outside, rattling the windows, and she glances in their direction, no longer used to storms. “People change,” Konan says, tucking her hair behind her ear. Today’s an inside sort of day, and she keeps it pulled away from her face with an elastic, which remains ineffective for her bangs. “Sometimes for the better. You were in those exams?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sasuke says. “I’m a chuunin. I showed ‘exceptional strategy and survival skills, and an understanding of leadership and teamwork.’ Basically I was just really great in the Forest of Death. I think I kind of scared everyone in the third test. Pein says I could be reinstated here.”

Her attempt at casual fails, and Konan pretends not to have noticed the hopefulness in Sasuke’s voice. Regardless of whether she puts a slash through the leaf symbol, or switches it for three straight lines, Konoha can still declare her a missing-nin. Separate villages will decide for themselves what they consider her. “After he removes the cursed on your shoulder,” Konan says, and Sasuke glances to the side, down, at the exposed black mark staining her skin. While Konan never particularly liked Orochimaru, she hadn’t thought he would fall so low as to corrupt the body of a child. “I talked to him this morning, too. You’re also going to need clothes. You and I aren’t close enough in size for me to lend you anything.”

Kisame’s shirts wraps around Sasuke like a dress. “I figured,” she says. “I’m going to need something warmer than what I wore in Konoha. A lot of streets are already iced over. Has it snowed yet, or just these sleet storms like yesterday?”

The endless rain keeps most streets flooded, and during the winter, they freeze in sheets. Injury reports increase from between the end of December and the beginning of March every year. “It snowed once so far,” Konan answers. “We should set you up with a room today, and I can give you directions to the main square if you’ve forgotten how to get there. We’ll have dinner together later.”

“Sounds good,” Sasuke says, standing. “I don’t need directions. I memorized the route with the Sharingan. Is my account still open? Because I have no Rain Country currency.”

Though Itachi operated under Nagato’s leadership longer, the Uchiha siblings’ account went under Sasuke’s name once she became a gennin. “It’s still there, but inactive,” Konan says. “We never declared you missing or dead. Don’t forget an umbrella.”

Rolling her eyes, Sasuke says, “I know, I know,” before fixing the position of Kisame’s shirt and wishing Konan goodbye.

The Akatsuki is missing its final member, and the position’s been Sasuke’s for years.

 

 

Removing the seal has unfortunate side effects, and Sasuke’s left with the symptoms of a chakra burnout for a week. On the day she’s fully recovered, Konan registers her as a chuunin and collects a new forehead protector. When she returns, though, Sasuke isn’t in her room, where her jacket’s thrown over her bed, and one of her drawers left open, both two common signs of messiness not usually be found here. It only takes a moment for Konan to realize this must mean someone’s back.

She finds them in the kitchens, everyone’s first destination after their report to Nagato. “So let me get this straight,” Deidara’s saying as she comes around the corner. Sasori’s nowhere in sight, which must mean there’s an issue with his main puppet, and Deidara and Sasuke sit side by side, adjusted to face each other. “Konoha has a runaway never declared missing-nin for a Hokage, the Kazekage is homicidal kid with a demon inside of him, and we’re the bad ones?”

“From what I’ve managed to gather, yeah,” Sasuke says before turning her attention to the entrance. “Oh, hi. Am I official now?”

As Konan holds out the forehead protector, she answers, “Yes. And your full name is on the form.” Sasuke accepts it with a thanks, and Konan continues, “The Jinchuruki boy was selected for Kazekage?”

Deidara nods through his mouthful of udon noodles. “Willingly, too,” he says after a moment. “Sasori got what was going on more than I did, but yeah, after three months, Suna finally picked someone, and he’s a _teenager_. It’s like telling Sasuke to lead Konoha.”

“My old teammate was obsessed with the idea of being Hokage,” Sasuke says as she ties the forehead protector around her head. “You know, the one that stabbed me? Who knows, though, maybe I terrified Gaara enough to show him he isn’t totally invincible. Konan, does this mean I can start going on missions again?”

“I want to see what you can do first,” Konan says. “So Suna isn’t a threat?”

Shrugging, Deidara says, “It depends on how good his advisers are. Sasori doesn’t exactly have the highest opinion of Suna’s government, though. I actually heard about your fight with that kid when I was there. When did you start using lightning?”

“You’re a chuunin,” she says, looking Sasuke before looking back to Deidara. “She’s a chuunin. People are already talking about her internationally?”

When she was here the first time, she gained the nickname Harbinger of Ame, but that it’s one thing for an idea to spread, and another for a true identity. Sasuke was always a ghost story, and even if she does join the Akatsuki, Konan was hoping to keep her that way, at least for a while. “Kind of,” Deidara says. “You’ll never hear a Suna-nin actually say this because I guess it must be treason, but basically what I got is that Sasuke-chan totally could’ve killed the Kazekage one on one. What did you do to him?”

Though Konan has more questions, it’s been a long time since these two have seen each other, and she gives Sasuke the time to tell the story of her third test with as much overdramatic detail as she can. Deidara listens to every word, captivated, and sometimes Konan forgets how young he is, too.

 

 

The end to the Sharingan’s power’s unknown for someone outside the family, and the ease at which Sasuke settles into the fan stances she claims to have forgotten acts as a heavy reminder. “I didn’t realize it,” she says during a short break on the bank of the river Konan originally taught her years earlier, “but I never really felt right with the style of fighting I was using in Konoha. I was using Itachi’s. It actually took a good six months to remember Shikigami no Mai.”

When Konan taught Sasuke how to use fans, the girl used the Sharingan sparingly, but she almost never blind for their other lessons. Konan preferred to have Sasuke learn naturally, without the help of a kekkei genkai, but for the basics of Shikigami no Mai, which rely on shapes, it was unavoidable. “Now that you’re old enough,” Konan says, “I can complete your training—”

“Really?” Sasuke springs up from her position lying on the ground, moss indented in the shape of her body. “When can we start?”

She asked for this lesson for the first time at eight, and it’s nice to see her enthusiasm on the subject hasn’t lessened. Until Konan met Sasuke, she though the Shikigami no Mai, and in extension her legacy, would die with her. “As soon as I can devote a day to training you,” she answers. “It’ll be very painful.”

Pain, she knows, has never deterred Sasuke before, even when she was younger. “Great,” she says. In the water and damp around them, bullfrogs and cicadas sing their songs earlier in the year than is normal. “I guess I can practice my own idea until then. Want to see? I’ve already got the basics.”

Curious, Konan tells the girl that of course she’d like to see, and watches Sasuke go through unfamiliar hand seals as she activates her new Sharingan. A moment later, her left hand is coated with blue electricity mimicking a robin’s call, and she raises paper shuriken from the pouch on her leg. The degree of her concentration is clear as her mouth thins, her eyebrows tilt in, and her right hand quivers, but the strain is worth it; the shuriken surround her hand, catching the lightning, before releasing. Lightning swirls inside them and around and fly forward faster than even Konan’s, almost quicker than her eye can follow, and imbed into a tree.

The electricity and lightning fade, and the effort leaves her breathing hard, leaning over with her hands on her knees. “Did you adapt that yourself, Sasuke?” Konan asks, and exhausted, Sasuke nods. Heavier clouds roll over the normal ones, laden with an approaching storm. “Keep practicing. The Shikigami no Mai is deadly in its own right, but largely an evasive maneuver until combined with explosive tags. It’s faster, and that should only give you more openings to finish the fight.”

“You used to tell me art’s creation.” she says, steadying herself. The origami shuriken shaped not much like shuriken at all are flattened again, fallen to the ground, leaving behind deep grooves in the tree scorched around the edges. The lightning hadn’t caused fire; the burns are contained, left with uneasy precision. “I’m not that good at making my own stuff, but I’m figuring out how to adapt.”

During her childhood lessons, Konan also told Sasuke destruction wasn’t art, and Konoha doesn’t seem to have taken that concept from her. The long range adaption is more elegant than its origin, and though it’ll lose some of its strength, she won’t need it if she times the release well enough. “Sunday I should have time,” Konan says. “That gives you six days to practice this.”

From this point forward, to however long it takes for Sasuke to master Shikigami no Mai, she’ll be in a near constant state of tiredness. Konan just hopes it’s something Sasuke can handle.

 

 

A hypocritical truth is that Shikigami no Mai, at its core, is purely destruction. Konan created it almost accidentally at fifteen, trying in a moment of delirium caused by an infection to bandage herself with origami paper and chakra. By some miracle, it worked, and through an act of harmful curiosity and misguided good intentions to help Yahiko’s cause, she nearly destroyed herself to create something new.

Sasuke’s body is barely scarred, the effects of good evasive skills and a family’s projected narcissism where the clan medic healed everything from gashes to papercuts. Though her capacity to deal with pain is surprisingly high for someone her age, she still screams and activates the Mangekyo Sharingan when Konan takes a kunai and slices into her arm so deeply she cuts into the radius. “Concentrate, Sasuke,” she says gently as the girl instinctively tries to pull away. “Remember what I told you.”

Next to Sasuke is a stack of origami paper, bright white, only a few shades lighter than her skin. They’re inside the tower training room, rarely used, and her blood drips to the stained floor. Hurting her is something Konan gets no enjoyment from, and she knows Sasuke could die from this, but she’s just as likely to die from any of her own techniques. All shinobi have risks they need to be willing to take.

After a moment, three sheets of paper slide of the stack with quivering, struggling movements, before slotting into the cut. She gasps; her eyelids flutter. When she falls sideways, Konan catches her, and helps her finish. Alone, Sasuke pulls out a fourth sheet and slides it over the wound, and alone, Konan merges it to her arm. Then she calls for the medical-nin who stands waiting on the other side of the door to take care of the internal damage.

Healing is a longer process than normal, since the medical-nin needs to work with the paper, and it’s not until hours later that Konan searches out Sasuke in her room, hearing she’s finally awake. “The rest won’t be real paper,” Konan tells her, helping her up so she can come down for dinner. Her room’s not as spare as when she was a child and sharing with her brother, decorated with origami shapes and fresh flowers from the market. “It’s made of your chakra in its purest form. Once you master it, it’ll even be painless. The real paper is there so your body can become used to the feel of it. I’m sorry I had to hurt you first.”

It’s only because Konan knows where to look that she can see the slight discoloration in Sasuke’s skin. Blankly, she says, “It wasn’t as bad as getting my eyes ripped out,” and doesn’t offer further explanation. For her privacy, Konan doesn’t ask.

 

 

In the time it took Konan to create Shikigami no Mai, Sasuke masters, then elaborates upon it, lacing it with lightning. When Nagato offers her the chance to become a jounin, Konan might not approve, but there’s no concrete reason for her to disagree.

Three days after the decision’s made, Sasuke returns to the tower covered in ash and moss stains. Deidara, somehow knowing her favorite restaurant, buys take-out before Konan can see about dinner, and Kisame reminds Sasuke to clean her hands like she’s still a child. Even Nagato and Sasori make to the dining room, and it’s been a long time since the atmosphere of this place felt so domestic.

For as much as Konan understood Itachi’s decisions, he never understood hers. When she was nine, her parents were killed in the war. By the time she was fourteen, she was fighting in the next one.  She saw something of herself and her team in the Uchiha siblings when they arrived, which gave her a perspective he couldn’t have. Itachi was too lost to do anything for, and though he was good at keeping it hidden, she could still see plainly how intense his feelings towards Konoha were. Sasuke, though, was young and parentless, and Konan remembers what it’s like to suddenly lose your place in your world. Socializing’s important, even in an abstract way, and Sasuke needed more than one rainy village and her brother in order to grow. Giving her a chance to become a kunoichi just seemed the logical choice.

Deidara nudges her with his elbow, drawing out a smile, when Sasori mentions the opening in the Akatsuki. They were legitimate once, with a defined cause that felt good to be a part of, before they dissolved into this. Despite the difference, when Sasuke says, “Wait, seriously, I could?” Konan can’t help but find it a little endearing anyway.  

The tenth place has been hers for years, and everyone in the Akatsuki knows it. In an organization of such cynical people, it’s nice to know they’ll finally have someone kind.

 

 

Sasuke’s lessons far from stopped once she rose in ranks, as every fight for her can easily become a new learning experience, but a new type is added after a mission in northern Iwa, when she returns with a bad chest cold. “Do you know why villages send so many ambassadors between each other?” Konan says when Sasuke finally convinces her out of boredom to explain what she’s doing. After Sasuke shakes her head, Konan continues, “I’m sure you heard the international chuunin exams were created to avoid war. It goes deeper than that—the chuunin exams also allow a look into one another’s strengths and weaknesses, in case there is war. Well, ambassadors measure the risks of whether or not a war’s likely to start, and the report is submitted at the end of each year.”

Glancing to the report, Sasuke asks, “What’s the risk this year? Suna and Konoha were both in bad shape.”

For the past fifteen years, or since the end of the war, risk has been low, earning the post-war period a time of “relative peace.” Unsurprisingly, the results for this year aren’t as neat. “Otogakure’s power was on the rise,” Konan says, “but it’s gone stagnant. Konoha’s suffering from economic troubles, but it’s joined a stronger alliance with Suna. Two major villages creating an independent alliance apart from the other three is considered a warning that conflict will worsen.”

Snow sticks to the frost coating the window, blurring out the overcast light, and leaving them with lamplight alone despite the time. Sasuke folds her arms across the desk. “But not two minor villages, right?” she says. “Because they’re not considered as important?”

“Smaller villages don’t have the manpower,” Konan says. “Several smaller villages, including ours, are stronger than Kirigakure, which always has some form of internal conflict, but they’ve been around longer, and have a greater population and economy. Geography is also a determining factor. The countries they guard are the largest, and not situated in a way that would make them battlegrounds. For major villages, countries housing smaller villages is neutral territory.”

“How’s that fair?”

“It’s not.”

Though Nagato is the official village head, Konan handles most of the political matters while he orchestrates the comings and goings of the Akatsuki. Yahiko had his own vision of what Ame could be one day, and though she knows this isn’t what he imagined at all, she tries to at least guarantee the village will never revert to what it was during the war. Ame is home to enough orphans as it is.

“People in Konoha always talk about Iwa-nin like they’re going to try to start a war any second,” Sasuke says, and covers her mouth with her elbow when she coughs. “Sorry. So, where do we lie?”

Konan, without intending to, spends the rest of the afternoon explaining inter-village politics, and the different components that contribute to status. With the same focus Sasuke uses on training, she listens, and learns the concepts quickly. Her interest is a little unusual, given her haphazard education when she was younger, but if she’s willing to learn, then Konan’s willing to teach.

 

 

First, Sasuke and Deidara wrangle the Isobu running wild, and then, alone, she delivers the a second Jinchuruki unconscious at Nagato’s feet. She stays long enough to assist in tearing the Saiken from him, killing the body, and disappears within minutes later. Worried, Konan searches for her, and finds Sasuke in a secluded area of the swamp circling Amegakure, her surroundings newly decorated with electric scorch marks and paper.

Her back’s turned, body propped against a tree, and though the sound’s quiet, her crying is no less audible. “Sasuke,” Konan says, approaching quietly, and when she places her hands on the girl’s shoulders, she doesn’t flinch away, “did you something happen on the mission?”

“No,” she answers, wiping her tears away with the back of one hand like a child. Under the thin cotton of her shirt, Konan can feel her bones. “It’s just—I wasn’t prepared for what killing someone like that felt like.”

Though Konan wasn’t either, she’s more experienced in killing others in inventive ways. Regardless of the goodness that came out of the original Akatsuki’s victory, civil war is a different sort of pain from one where your enemy’s clear. She’s learned the hard way to deal with anything. “Was it the killing that bothered you,” she asks, “or the connection to your Konoha teammate?”

When Sasuke moves away, Konan doesn’t stop her. “I don’t even know,” Sasuke says, turning around. Her hair and clothes are wet from Ame’s rainfall, and her cheeks stained with tears. “I’m sorry.”

Sighing quietly, Konan takes Sasuke by the wrist and leads her to a nearby log, sitting them down. She remembers going on her first mission alone at thirteen—if the job was even official enough to be called a mission—and how the man she killed at hair like Nagato’s, gleaming in the overcast sunlight. Maybe not the same situation, but the conclusion is the same, as you can’t help who you care for, or what reminds you of them. Most of the new Akatsuki hadn’t meant to care for Sasuke when she first came with her brother as a child, Konan thinks.

“I’ve told you before about how Yahiko raised an army,” she says, and Sasuke sniffles, wiping her eyes again. “There weren’t many, so skill and enthusiasm carried the fighting morale more than anything else. That smaller number, though, made it possible to learn almost everyone’s name. But sometimes, they changed sides because someone close to them was threatened, or because something made them lose belief in the war effort. It was harder to deal with than casualties, because you faced a friend on the opposite of the battlefield, and there was nothing you could do about it. You knew them as friends at one point, though. Situations couldn’t stop you from not wanting to them hurt, but you knew you had to.”

Konan’s used to building Nagato back up when something causes a bad mood, which isn’t difficult, considering the position he’s in. At one point, she did the same with Yahiko. When Sasuke says, “I was horrible to him,” Konan’s not surprised in discovering it’s easier getting a girl to open up. “Or, them. And they just kept _trying_ —well, kind of. It was confusing. He was annoying, but I don’t know if I could kill him like _that_. And if I attack him, Sakura will fight back, and I’ve known her forever, and I don’t know. I’ll be over it in a few days.”

Even though Sasuke won’t be, Konan doesn’t have the heart to tell her so. “You might be the most convenient in collecting the Jinchuruki,” she says, “but the others can, too. If it’s hard for you, you can always say no.”

Shaking her head, Sasuke says, “I chose my loyalties, right? I can’t just go back on them. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t hurt.”

“It hurts?”

“Going inside a seal is like,” she starts to say, and pauses before continuing, “It’s not my physical body, but it feels like ripping me apart anyway. It’s how I imagine being burned by Amaterasu’s like.”

By now, Konan hasn’t bothered to hide her favoritism, and if it were possible, would prefer to anyone to send short of Nagato to do this. It’s Sasuke’s age, or maybe the way her smile can look a bit like Yahiko’s when she’s cheerful enough, but Konan doesn’t like seeing the girl hurt. “You should have said something,” she says. “We wouldn’t have sent you if we’d known.”

Sasuke shrugs. “Half of the Mangekyo Sharingan can do,” she says, “are named after gods and goddesses because they hurt the user, too. I thought going into Gaara’s seal was that painful because I didn’t expect it, but I don’t know. It’ll be fine if I’m with someone who can deal with everything when I’m incapacitated.”

As long as she remains the most efficient, Nagato will keep sending Sasuke, Konan knows. “Next time Kisame will go with you,” she says, and thinks Sasuke never should have gone alone in the first place.

 

 

A masked man brings Sasuke back from the Sound Country, unconscious and near death. It takes several hours to heal her, and even after she’s slow to wake, pulling herself up with unsteady arms. The sight of the Rinnegan shocks Konan more deeply than the first time she saw Itachi’s eyes transplanted into his sister’s.

“Turns out its an evolved form of the Sharingan,” Sasuke says when Konan asks, and she looks beyond the girl to Nagato, whose face remains impassive even as his shoulders tighten. “I was dying and then it happened. I used up all my chakra before I figured out how to deactivate it.”

To her surprise, he reaches out, placing his hand against Sasuke’s back. “It takes some time,” he says, “adjusting to that sort of power.”

Sasuke curls into herself, little and afraid, and Konan has a startling realization that this new Akatsuki, as broken as it is, is just as much a family as the old one.

 

 

It’s not until Sasuke’s partner switches from Kisame to Deidara that she hears about Sasori. Recovery from the news is expectedly slow, but it happens. A couple weeks later, Konan’s out in the Ame streets just to escape the monotony for a while, and sees Sasuke under her umbrella, twirling the handle as she speaks with a team of chuunin around her age. Two look like brother and sister, lanky and tall blondes with narrow green eyes, and then a second girl barely bigger than Sasuke, her brown hair chopped short like a boy’s. None of them stare at the Rinnegan, uncovered, and neither do the passersby.

Seeing her around other young people is rare, even if realistically Deidara isn’t much older than she is. What’s really interesting, though, is the familiarity she has with everyone around her. She’s not terribly personable, something Konan feels is their fault, but that doesn’t seem much of a deterrent. There’s a blatant admiration in the way the other three look her, unexpected given her inescapable leftovers of Konoha’s accent. Ame-nin don’t take kindly to foreigners, after all.

As another group comes to join the first, crowding her, Konan turns away. Sasuke has a tendency not to mention what she doesn’t consider important, even when to others it might be. She’s a quick learner, and curious, too, so over the past year and half, she’s received more of a political education than Konan ever did. In Ame, the people rather than a council choose the next village head. One day, inevitably, she and Nagato will die, and it’d be comforting to know the position would pass on to someone who understands what they’ve been trying to achieve for years. Despite Sasuke’s status as a legal citizen, she’s still foreign, and thought hadn’t crossed Konan’s mind. If she’s well liked by more than the Akatsuki themselves, though, maybe there’s a chance the ideals of the original can continue.

Though Nagato strives for worldwide peace, Konan has an unspoken, more accessible dream, and wants Amegakure to become the village they once planned on creating.

 

 

Sasuke’s hours away end abruptly when Nagato takes over training her. Konan thinks the weight loss and exhaustion are the cause of training stress, as they were earlier, but then Sasuke comes to her, face white and lips red, and says, “I need a medic.”

When Itachi first developed signs of illness, Konan was the one he told before his sister, before Kisame. It was the only time she ever heard Itachi admit he was scared, and he asked her to look after Sasuke should he die early. “All right,” Konan says, keeping calm for both their sakes. They’re in the private living area, where she came to have some quiet time to read. “Wait here. I’ll find someone.”

Before she can, Sasuke coughs, hand over her mouth and body shaking, and Konan catches her before she can fall, leading her over to the couch. That’s when Konan notices the blood, stiffening Sasuke’s hair like rotten straw. As gently as Konan can, she nudges the hair above Sasuke’s ear out of the way, purposely ignoring the wince, and finds a small cut right over a bump. There’s nothing broken, but her normal eye’s pupil is dilated, unfocused and pained.

“I passed out,” she says quietly. Her mouth is redder, her face whiter, and with her black hair billowed around her, she really does look like the spirit Shimo-nin have accused her of being. “One second I was standing and then I wasn’t and there was blood on the corner of the bed.”

Konan removes her fingers. “Wait here,” she says again as Sasuke curls her own, hiding the blood on her palm. “You’re going to be okay, Sasuke.”

Even as she says it, they both know it’s a lie. “Konan,” Sasuke says. “I don’t want to be sick.”

At fifteen, Itachi came to Konan sick and scared.

A year and a half later, he was dead.

 

 

After the seizure of one of the Kumo Jinchuruki, Sasuke returns to Ame from a short break to herself carrying a bouquet of flowers. “There was a civilian boy in the town I was in who kept trying to date me or something,” she says as she slips the forget-me-nots and camellia between the pages of a book in her room. “You can tell he asked the florist to make an arrangement.”

There are forget-me-nots for true love, and lotus flowers for distant love, and camellia for falling in love. Meaningless snowdrops dot the bouquet, providing filler. “He must have liked you quite a bit,” Konan says, watching Sasuke begin with the others in a second book. Her room is decorated with flowers and reading material, a vase of pinwheels from every country on her dresser, and the only weapon in sight the chokuto Kisame gave her half hidden in the corner. “Even florists get their arrangements from somewhere.”

“I let him kiss me,” she says without turning around. “That’s probably why. I just—I don’t know. Wanted to know what it’s like.”

Konan knows, because Kisame complained about recklessness, that Sasuke’s used her body during missions, but that’s a necessary practice for a kunoichi. Given her situation, Konan understands wanting to learn how attraction without an agenda feels. “Medical jutsu advances all the time, Sasuke,” she says. “Nothing is definite.”

Losing someone is always difficult, and losing Sasuke will be more difficult than most these past few years. Since Itachi first brought her, she’s represented a lot to Konan—a possible successor, a student, the closest thing she can imagine to a daughter. It’s selfish, and she knows it, but she isn’t ready to say goodbye. Sasuke, like Itachi, like Yahiko, is going to die too young.

They deserved better than what life gave them.

“Yeah,” Sasuke says, place the book on the shelf and finally turning. For the first time in a long while, she looks healthy. “Honestly, the Hokage probably already can. Just my luck that she’d rather stop my heart by this point instead, right? The boy was a vegetable vendor, by the way. He gave me a recipe for this tomato miso soup thing that I’m not brave enough to touch on my own, but it was really good.”

As she pulls a slip of lined paper out of her weapons back, her fingers fumble, and Konan thinks it’s fortunate most of her attacks require no contact to the opponent, or a weapon. If anyone can heal Sasuke, it’s the sannin Tsunade of Konoha, which means there might be the slightest chance after all.

 

 

On the day Amaterasu stops burning and Deidara’s nothing but a memory and ashen stain, Sasuke says, “I froze. It’s my fault.”

Konan, predicting the following moment, uses her umbrella to cover Sasuke as hers slips from her hand. Of every fire on this earth, Amaterasu is the only one that can burn contained, and in the rain. “Partners die, Sasuke,” Konan says, using hardened experience to chip away at her own sadness. “It doesn’t mean the fault is yours.”

“No,” Sasuke says, staring down at the stain. It’s difficult to hear her over the downpour. “The moment I was angry, I almost tore the seal apart. If I’d just done that a few seconds earlier.”

“You weren’t the one to kill him,” Konan says. “It’s the Jinchuruki to blame.”

“I want to go after him,” Sasuke says, and like that, her body’s shaking as it had after her capture of the Saiken Jinchuruki. “I’m such an idiot.” Her voice quivers. “I didn’t think. I _let_ him leave.”

“We’re sending Kisame and Tobi,” Konan says, taking Sasuke by the arm and turning her around. “You shouldn’t fight him twice.”

Sasuke doesn’t protest when Konan wraps her in a hug, gripped with the arm not occupied with the umbrella. “I wasn’t because I was sick,” Sasuke says. “That’s the worst part. I don’t even have an excuse. I was just so—”

“Never fight for revenge,” Konan interrupts. “Emotion is the hardest barrier to fight with. Sasuke, I didn’t think you were sick. You can’t be blamed for not realizing this one was better than the rest. It was a miscalculation from all of us.”

“I shouldn’t have left him just leave,” Sasuke says, barely listening. “I was too focused. I should’ve just killed him when I had the chance.”

The last time Konan heard Sasuke talk like this was after Sasori’s death, and of her Konoha team. As she grips the back of Konan’s shirt, she says, “You need some rest.”

Though it’s doubtful Sasuke wants to, she still nods, and Konan walks her back to her bedroom for some much needed sleep.

 

 

Konan’s eating a late night dinner, picking at the sushi without tasting it, when Sasuke appears in the kitchen doorway dripping with rain, her white shirt and grey pants both fitting tightly to her body.

“Kisame and Tobi are going after the Gyuki Jinchuruki, right?” she asks, leaning against the door frame. “I know what you said, but are you sure I can’t go with them?”

Though for Sasuke, losing Sasori was painful, losing Deidara three days earlier was more so, or so Konan’s noticed. “They left earlier today,” she says, “when you were out.” The state of Sasuke’s clothes plainly shows she spent the day in the swamp again, but she isn’t as exhausted as she normally is. “You should sit.”

She’s over in three steps, sliding into a chair across the table where the light catches the water in her hair, making it gleam. Though they’re dry now, her eyes are still red from shed tears. “Give me something to do,” she says. “Anything. I don’t care if it’s information gathering, or going after some politician or just someone that’s really annoying, or Naruto. I just need something to do.”

For a moment, Konan can’t think of what to say, taken off guard by Sasuke’s request to go after her old teammate. “You’re not getting a solo mission,” Konan says, and knows that for all that Nagato wants the Jinchuruki gathered, he’ll delay capturing Konoha’s until the others return to avoid Sasuke risking a fight alone.

“What?” she says. “Why? There was no issue sending me out before.”

“That was before you were sick,” Konan says, setting the chopsticks she still has in hand aside. “It’s not safe for you on your own. We never sent Itachi out without Kisame either.”

“I have it under control,” Sasuke says, crossing her arms. “It’s not like I’m collapsing in the middle of a fight. I thought we established that.”

“You’re one of the most wanted kunoichi throughout every village, Sasuke,” Konan says, “and there is no friendly territory outside of the Rain Country. Konoha is seven days away, which makes a minimum fourteen round trip. All it takes is one moment of weakness for a team of ANBU to capture you instead.”

Frowning, Sasuke says, “That wouldn’t happen. Is there anything in the Wind Country? We all know if it really comes down to it, I can kill the Kazekage, so it’s not like I’m in any danger.”

It’s not unheard of for Sasuke to be argumentative, but Konan rarely ever sees this side of her. “You’re staying in Ame until Kisame returns,” she says, and thinks it may possibly be beyond that. “There’s no point in chasing death like that.”

“So what?” Sasuke says it. “I’m close to dying anyway.”

“Do you want to rush that?”

“Not really, but it’s not like failed successor to the village head is the safest profession when no one else realizes it’s impossible.” When Konan doesn’t answer immediately, Sasuke continues, “It was pretty hard not to notice. Sorry I managed to screw up that one, too.”

The flicker of her right eye into the Sharingan is the only warning Konan has before Sasuke disappears, and her chakra signature along with it. Sighing, Konan returns to her dinner in the silence of the kitchen, and just hopes the girl will come to her later.

 

 

As expected, Sasuke appears as quickly as she left, exhaustion bruising under her eyes, and lips red from sickness. “I’m sorry,” she says, huddling up against the armrest on the far cushion of the living area couch Konan also occupies, the book she’s been attempting to find time to finish for a month on her lap. She hasn’t picked it up since Deidara’s death. Of all potential distractions, this is the only welcome one. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just didn’t want you to be right.”

In many ways, Sasuke’s old for her age, but in others, she’s still just young. Age and experience gives Konan an edge of common sense she didn’t always have at fifteen, either. “I’m not angry,” she says. “There’s no need to apologize. Please understand from my—our perspective, though. We’ve always pushed you too hard, but we don’t want to see you hurt.”

Sasuke coughs once, dryly, into her elbow before saying, “It’s not too hard. I mean, I get it, because it was the same thing with Itachi, right? The Uchiha kekkei genkai are just really useful.”

“Yes.” As she’s aware already, Konan doesn’t have cause to lie. “But with only two Jinchuruki left, we might not send you out at all.”

Earlier this morning, she and Nagato talked it over, and the decision is definite. Sasuke may be the quickest, but they don’t know how well she’ll be able to handle extraction, let alone a fight. Despite what Konan told Sasuke in her bedroom, logic says her slip in the fight with the Gyuki Jinchuruki was most likely caused by her worsening health after all. More than ever, Konan thinks that regardless of the strength of her loyalty, this is a terrible idea that won’t work. Too much has gone wrong, and too many people’ve died, for it ever to manage to.

“I guess that might be a good thing,” Sasuke says, so low Konan barely hears her. “I just wanted to see what I could do. Barely lasted a half hour.”

When they both keep quiet, the sound of the rain hitting in quick beats against the roof and windows seems to grow louder. At least Sasuke’s dry this time; she must have brought an umbrella, as she always should. “Sasuke,” Konan says, and the girl raises her eyes, “how would you like to die?”

Without pause, Sasuke answers, “In a way that makes you not completely ashamed of me.”

Konan leans forward as Sasuke averts her gaze again, and presses a kiss to her hair. “I could never be ashamed of you,” she says, and means every word.

 

 

When Sasuke appears to protest Nagato’s decision and protect the wrong side, Konan’s not surprised, and, as promised, unashamed. She understands the deep connection to home, and what it means. Sasuke was born breathing Fire Country air, and no matter how softly she pronounces her vowels, nothing will ever change that.

Later, after the Jinchuruki boy convinces Nagato to sacrifice himself and everything falls to nothing, Konan makes a choice. How easy it would be it steal the girl away, as injured as she is from her odd fight with Tobi, but Konan knows if she does that, it won’t be long before Sasuke dies, too. If Sasuke returns to Konoha, Konan likely won’t see her again. After Nagato only hours earlier, the thought of that is even more painful than before, but even co-leaders of the most feared criminal organization in the shinobi world can be selfless at times. Konan decided Sasuke was her legacy a long time ago. That can’t happen if she dead.

In the aftermath of the invasion, Konoha exists in a state of temporary chaos at least for the night, and Konan uses it to her advantage. Sasuke’s unconscious when Konan appears in a flurry of origami butterflies next to the hospital bed, her black hair wrapped around her like an extra blanket. She’s cold to the touch, and almost white, both the result of blood loss. Konan, in a moment of nonsensical contemplation brought on by stress and several sleepless nights, wonders if Yuki-onna will melt now that spring’s come to the Fire Country, and the weather warmed. It all depends on if she’s rightly assumed the Hokage’ll decide Sasuke’s absolved of all crimes, Konan thinks.

She settles into a seat left next to the bed, wondering how she should say goodbye. Unlike the others she’s lost, she has the opportunity this time, whether Sasuke registers it or not.

Eventually, Konan decides to steal from childhood memories, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and remembering the way Sasuke would always look at the point right over her left shoulder. “When I was a little younger than you,” Konan says, repeating the first bedtime story she ever told, “I met a boy named Yahiko who saw a better world.”

Sasuke’s breathing’s uneven and pained, and never once does she move. When Konan’s finished, she waits another long moment before standing, taking the edges of the blanket and covering to Sasuke to the chin like she’s still a blind little girl.

Change the world, Konan thinks. Remember our mistakes, and fix them all.

 

 

Konan sacrifices herself in vain, and Amegakure spirals without her. Hundreds of miles away in the Fire Country, Uchiha Sasuke lies on a blanket with her team under the stars, laughing about love and strangers and memories of chasing a cat through the trees.

Stability and peace are abstract concepts impossible to achieve, and all Sasuke learns is to not bother to try. 

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, guys, I'm still willing to take requests, so feel free to ask.


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